Top Ten Books 2011
For newbies, please note: these are not necessarily in order and not necessarily published this year, just read this year. By me. And probably you.
Game of Throne series by Martin, George R.R. [but really only the first three books deserve ‘top’ status]
The Hunger Games series by Collins, Suzanne [one and three but might as well add two]
Bossypants by Fey, Tina
Sleepwalk With Me and Other Painfully True Stories by Birbiglia, Mike
Not Quite a Husband by Thomas, Sherry
Zombie Spaceship Wasteland by Oswalt, Patton
Cosmicomics by Calvino, Italo
You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When It Monsoons by Willems, Mo
The Help by Stockett, Kathryn
Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Lawson, Jenny
Top Ten Books 2012
For newbies, please note: these are not necessarily in order and not necessarily published this year, just read this year. By me. And probably you.
Gone Girl by Flynn, Gillian
Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin [hat tip: emily]
The Lacuna by Kingsolver, Barbara [hat tip: libbe]
Black Box by Egan, Jennifer
What it Was by Pelecanos, George
Outlander by Gabaldon, Diana
The Fry Chronicles by Fry, Stephen
97 Orchard by Ziegelman, Jane
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami [hat tip: eric]
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Kaling, Mindy [hat tip: gojira]
Top Ten Books 2013
Until I have the time and energy to devote to reshaping my Top 100 list, I’ll take baby steps with the books I’ve read this year. Note: these are not necessarily in order and not necessarily published this year, just read this year. By me. And possibly you.
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese [hat tip: kg’s mom]
Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver [hat tip: kawsar]
Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple [hat tip: keltie]
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin [hat tip: osman]
This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz
Heads in Beds by Jacob Tomsky
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
Assassin’s Apprentice (actually, the whole Farseer Trilogy) by Robin Hobb [hat tip: julie]
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
The Passage (and The Twelve) by Justin Cronin [hat tip: kg]
Intermission: starting in 2015, I began increasing my lists to match the year. You can find the top 15 of 2015, top 16 of 2016, etc. somewhere in the bowels of this blog.
Top Books of 2019
This is the year I started Instagramming (#latetothegame) and cobbled a top 12 because that’s what the grid allows and we must all bow to the demands of the grid.
Bad Blood by John Carryrou [hat tip: footer]
Becoming by Michelle Obama
The Hating Game by Sally Thorne
Educated by Tara Westover
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
The Good Immigrant compilation
Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone
Good Talk by Mira Jacob
Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton
Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
A Beginner’s Guide to the End by B.J. Miller, Shoshana Berger
Top Dystopylicious Books
March 2020. Is our proclivity for dystopian novels a benefit (we know what to expect – we know what should be in our go-bags) or hinderance (we know what to expect – we scoff at the single digit numbers in the news)? Top fifteen books to praise/blame:
Station Eleven
Hollow Kingdom
Year One
Parable of the Sower
The Girl With All the Gifts
The Gone-Away World
The Fifth Season
The Wolf Road
The Stand
Fahrenheit 451
Wool
The Passage
The Hunger Games
1984
The Book of Koli
Bajira! 